


Strawberry Lemonade

by nirejseki



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:56:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7431309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny can have many roads and many meanings.  This is the one for Sara and Kendra.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Response to tumblr prompt: sara/kendra childhood friends au?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberry Lemonade

When Sara is three and can only just remember, the nice woman who lived next to her grandmother's house in Oakland, her absolutely favorite babysitter who smelled sweet and who would always make her strawberry lemonade, is murdered.

Her parents don't tell her, of course; she wanders her grandmother's house asking to go to visit Miss Suzie incessantly until Laurel – nearly four years older and far wiser to the mysterious ways of adults, although possessed of a vicious sense of humor - tells her that Miss Suzie got stabbed. She demonstrates on a teddy bear until Sara bursts into tears.

Laurel gets put in time out, but Miss Suzie is still gone.

Years pass and Sara forgets all about it.

When Sara is nine and very immature (Laurel, who is thirteen and wears lipstick now, says so), a new family moves in down the block and Sara is dragged along to greet them to the neighborhood because they have a little girl "her age".

Kendra is six and Sara is aghast at the suggestion that she's the same age as a six year old. The unfairness of adults is unbelievable.

But Kendra herself is very sweet and offers her some strawberry lemonade she says she mixed herself, and Sara resigns herself to entertaining her for a while.

Kendra is from St Roch and likes the same cartoons Sara does. Her lemonade tastes like home. 

Sara admits, reluctantly, that Kendra may not be too bad as all that, so when Sara's dad suggests that Sara can babysit Kendra for money, Sara agrees. She agrees to split the money with Kendra, 70-30, in exchange for Kendra not making a fuss about it.

Kendra's just happy to have a new friend. 

After a few weeks, Sara is too. Of course, they don't tell their parents about it - and give up the free money? - but Kendra asks especially for Sara and Sara offers nobly to go over pretty often. Her parents hide smiles when she does, so she's not sure she's fooling them, but they pay her anyway and she can use the money to buy her and Kendra ice cream.

Things get harder when Sara gets into middle school and her friends start complaining about all the time she spends with an elementary school student, but Sara brandishes the money she earns like a shield and goes to play with Kendra anyway.

Maybe she is immature. Sara doesn't care.

Childhood becomes adolescence. 

Babysitting becomes friendship. 

Playdates become hanging out become sleepovers. 

They go out to see movies together. They talk about school and friends and dreams and boys (and even sometimes girls). Sara tells Kendra about how jealous she is of Laurel and her relationship with their mutual friend, Oliver, who Sara has a terrible crush on. Kendra confesses that she believes – really believes, not just pretends – that she had past lives and that she dreams of what happened in them at night. Sara virtuously tells her parents that she was at Kendra’s when she was actually at a high school party. Kendra goes to Sara for help with math when she finds out she’s in danger of failing out.

They spend afternoon after afternoon curled up on Kendra’s bed, gossiping and watching television. They help each other through their first heartbreaks, and it’s not so bad because it wasn’t like they spent all their times with their boyfriends anyway: that honor was reserved for each other. 

Sara’s already told Kendra that she was bi and Kendra never confessed the same, but when Sara’s a senior, about to go to college, and Kendra’s a sophomore, Sara decides it’s time to take the risk and tell Kendra about the other feelings she’s been having.

The not-quite-friendship ones.

The risk pays off. 

They start dating: holding hands and sharing kisses and walking home in the rain, getting soaked, just to spend some more time together. Everything is perfect. Even after Sara goes to college, it’s not so far away: she comes home every weekend and Kendra is there, soft and pretty and perfect. 

When Sara is a sophomore in college and Kendra a senior in high school, it all goes wrong.

Kendra starts dreaming of a man. His name changes – Khufu, Joe, Hannibal, _Carter_ – but he is always the same. He’s her _soulmate_. He reads her love poetry and saves her life and they fly on the wings of hawks. They die tragically in each other’s arms. 

Kendra gets obsessed.

Sara gets jealous. 

They fight. 

They break up. They last about a week before they fling themselves back together, crying and begging forgiveness. Kendra promises she won’t give up on their relationship for a dream. Sara promises not to doubt that Kendra is with her, not with some man.

Kendra keeps having the dreams. 

Sara grinds her jealousy underfoot, pretending to smile and burying her resentment. Pretends that Kendra doesn’t whisper the name of a man while asleep in their bed. Kendra’s chosen her. She tells herself that again and again. Kendra’s chosen her.

They don’t talk as much about their thoughts and hopes. They go back to the old standbys: movies and television and politics and celebrities. They compare lists of favorite movie stars.

Sara jokes that she should totally get a free pass if Scarlett Johannsson ever hits on her.

Kendra says she should, then bites her lip and asks if she could get a free pass of her own.

Sara – full of popcorn and pizza and lemonade, warm and happy with her girlfriend cuddled up close – smiles and says sure. Who do you want?

She’s expecting a celebrity. Some attractive woman, or maybe even a gorgeous actor with sharp cheekbones. Maybe it’ll be someone embarrassing, like an aging rock star or a politician or something. 

Kendra asks for Carter-Joe-Khufu, if and when he ever re-enters her life. 

Sara is taken entirely by surprise, though maybe she shouldn’t have been. 

She should have _known_.

They fight again; Sara screams that she won’t be Kendra’s _stand-in_ while she waits for her “soulmate” boyfriend to swoop in and replace her. Kendra yells that Sara promised she wouldn’t do this, and isn’t she overreacting? Kendra doesn’t even know if Carter’s a real person, after all. Sara grits her teeth and says she won’t be second best to anyone, not even a dream. Sara says that as long as Kendra wants Carter more that her, as long as Kendra can’t make up her damned mind once and for all, they’re over. 

Sara storms out.

When she gets home, Oliver, Laurel’s boyfriend, is there. He looks anxious and unsettled. He hits on her. In a foul mood, still angry, Sara flirts back. Runs her hand up his arm and tells him, sighing, that she had _such_ a crush on him when she was younger.

He kisses her and asks her to come with him on his father’s yacht, a little getaway, just the two of them. Sara bites her lip, considering it; she’s angry at Kendra, she’s angry at Laurel, but that does seem a bit much.

She says she’ll think about it. Oliver says they leave in two days.

Kendra doesn’t call that day, or the next, or the day after. 

Sara packs her bag, throwing in her sunscreen and her best underwear and her good luck hat, makes her mother promise to keep her secret. 

She goes with Oliver. An apologetic Kendra misses her by a matter of hours. 

It’s the worst mistake of her life.

Sara rebuilds herself from nothing, fighting for her life as she drowns and dies and drowns again. She is rescued by the League of Shadows. They make her a weapon.

Nyssa al Ghul is more than just a teacher; she is a friend. And then, one day, Nyssa turns to her and tells her that it’s more than that. She loves Sara.

Sara turns her down.

Nyssa persists.

Sara puts her hands on either side of Nyssa’s head and tells her that her heart has been lost, long ago. Nyssa purrs that she will be content with Sara’s body. Sara thinks of Kendra – thinks of the years that have passed, thinks of how Kendra must think that she is dead, thinks of _Carter_ – and says yes. 

Sara loves and Sara leaves and Sara dies.

Sara reawakens from her grave a monster. 

She sees Kendra again for the first time in seven years on a dank Starling rooftop. There’s a man by Kendra’s side who calls himself Carter Hall. Turns out there’s a whole prophecy tied into their lives – a tyrant by the name of Vandal Savage, who kills them in every life, will take over the world unless either Kendra or Carter kills him.

Sara stays quiet and cold, hangs to the back of the roof where Kendra doesn’t look. She turns away.

Laurel talks her into going on the mission anyway, talks to her about being a hero. Sara doesn’t mention Kendra, but when she’s lying in bed at night, trying to decide if she should go, she can’t help but think about Kendra – her Kendra – being forced to murder a man to save the world. A man which has murdered her over two hundred times already. Sara tries to convince herself that she doesn’t care. Kendra’s made her choice, and it’s not Sara. 

She shows up at the rendezvous point anyway, and it’s not because she wants to be a hero.

Kendra didn’t see Sara on the roof – Sara deliberately held herself back – but she sees her now and her breath catches at the sight of her. “Sara?” she whispers in shock, voice catching as if there’s something stuck in her throat. 

Sara walks forward – and past her, sticking out her hand to Carter. “My name’s Sara Lance,” she says, pasting a smile on her face. “You said your name was Carter?”

The man blinks and shakes her hand in return. He doesn’t seem that bright to Sara, but he’s certainly handsome. Maybe Kendra goes in for the dumb jock thing now. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says. 

One of the criminals that’s been brought in on the crew checks out Sara’s ass on the way into the timeship. She shakes it in his direction because hey, she’s got a great ass and it ought to be appreciated. He smirks at her but doesn’t follow through with any more flirting, opting to go sit by his partner in crime, who rolls his eyes at him. 

Sara ends up heading out with the two of them to a bar in the 1970s. Snart and Rory are good sports, happy to let her do her thing and happy to back her up. They both think she’s hot and can handle herself, and they fight like pros. They move like a married couple.

She asks.

Turns out they are. 

Sara asks if Snart was using a free pass on her, and she manages to sound only a little bit bitter about it. They blink at her, confused.

“What’s a free pass for?” Rory rumbles.

“I think it’s for people who only sleep with each other,” Snart offers. “Like, an exception to the rule.”

“Well, that’s boring,” Rory declares and climbs in the car to drive them back.

“We’ve got more in the nature of a final veto, if necessary,” Snart tells her. “Not so much a pass system.”

Sara sighs with envy.

_Boys._

They’re so straightforward compared to girls.

Turns out the professor the rest of the crew went to go chat with was Kendra’s son from a past life; he gets shot and dies in the med bay before her. Kendra is distraught and throws herself into Carter’s arms. This trip is just one fun revelation after another. Sara sticks around anyway, even after Rip’s revelation that they’re not heroes. 

Sara doesn’t take it personally. She never thought of herself as a hero. 

Neither do Snart and Rory. They’re surprisingly good company, even if Snart sees her watching Kendra and is just a little too perceptive on the subject. He’s sympathetic without being cloying about it, which is good; otherwise, she’d have to try to kill him.

Sara aches at the way Snart smiles at Rory when he thinks Rory isn’t looking, endlessly fond. She aches at the way Rory does the same.

Sara spends most of the rest of that mission high as a kite on good old 1970s weed. It’s better than listening to Carter romance Kendra over the comms system. 

Then Carter dies. 

Kendra is hurt, but survives with help from Ray.

Looks like destiny doesn’t always solve everything.

Sara has too much pride to go crawling to Kendra now that she’s available, now that Kendra’s goddamn _widowed_ , but it’s a closer call than Sara would like. She gets out of bed three times that night, pacing the hallways, until the door across from her slides open and Snart leans out, yawning. “C’mon,” he says sleepily to her, and draws her inside. 

They don’t have sex, because Sara is so in love with someone who doesn’t love her back that it hurts and also because Snart and Rory are both bruised up from the handful of fights they’ve been having, but they pull her into bed with them and keep her warm until her unshed tears unfreeze within her and she can finally sleep. 

Kendra sees Sara walking out of their bedroom and turns away from her without even giving her a chance to explain. 

Sara crosses her arms defensively in front of her. It’s for the best, she reasons. She doesn’t want to be a rebound, least of all Kendra’s rebound. She has more dignity than that. 

Then, of course, Rip assigns Sara the job of teaching Kendra how to use her powers.

They spend the first hour awkwardly pretending not to know each other and then somehow they’re in each other arms and sobbing and it turns out Kendra came to apologize to her only hours after Sara left with Oliver, and that she drifted around in a depression after Sara’s death, that she quit school and moved to Central to be a barista in an attempt to start life over somewhere that didn’t remind her of Sara all the time. That’s where she met Carter and she didn’t love him nearly as much as she thought she would – he was presumptuous and arrogant and condescending. He pushed her off a building without letting her make the decision herself; she would’ve died without the Flash to save her. He thought of her as a goddess, not a woman, and pressured her for sex because she’d fallen in love with him two hundred times before so obviously she was a sure thing this time around too. Kendra hadn’t wanted him to die, but she hadn’t wanted him, either. 

Sara tells her about the League and about Nyssa and about dying, too. Kendra touches their foreheads together and says, “Sara, you’re not a monster” the way Sara’s always wanted someone to do. Then Kendra cracks a grin and says, “Besides, I’m the one who can grow wings” and Sara laughs until she cries.

“This doesn’t solve all our problems,” Sara warns, but she can’t seem to stop stroking Kendra’s hair.

“Of course,” Kendra agrees. “There’s Savage, after all, and I don’t know what happens if we go to another time when Carter’s alive. We should take it slow.” Her hands are warm on Sara’s sides.

“Definitely slow.”

They end up making out passionately anyway.

Possibly a bit more than that.

It’s _been a while_ , okay?

Afterwards, when they’re trying to make themselves seem decent so that they can go rescue Ray, Stein and Rory from a Russian gulag, of all things, Kendra says hesitantly, “Um…I just wanted to check…but…you and Snart aren’t…”

Sara laughs till she’s nearly crying.

Rip plays on her fears and her bloodthirst in an attempt to convince her to kill Stein for the good of the world, but Snart talks her out of it while on his way to rescue his husband. He’s a damn good multitasker and after she tells Kendra the whole story, Kendra tracks him down and kisses him on the cheek, much to his surprise. 

Everything goes to hell after that: 2046 is Sara’s worst nightmare of what happens to Starling in her absence, Snart and Rory start fighting, she and Snart nearly freeze to death together, Rory nearly kills her – looks like he’s a bit more jealous than he was letting on, the _idiot_ – and somehow before anyone knows what’s happened, Ray, Sara, and Kendra have been left behind in 1958.

At least it’s with Ray, Sara reflects, who is so cool with their quote “adorable lesbian romance” that he practically swoons over it, though she would have preferred Snart, personally. (Kendra growls when she says that. Sara has to remind her – thoroughly – that she prefers her, and at any rate that Snart is _married_. She doesn’t mention the boys’ veto system.) Being stuck with Stein and his love affair with the 1950s would have been worse; being stuck with Rip is unthinkable. And if it’d been Jax she would’ve felt horrifically guilty about seeing him lose his youth, year by year, in an era that doesn’t know the meaning of civil rights. 

As it is, she pretends to be Ray’s sister and Kendra pretends to be his wife and they go north, where an interracial relationship like that is – not _accepted_ , perhaps, but at least less commented on. They visit New York at one point so that Kendra and Sara can go let down their hair and beat up some cops who think busting a lesbian bar is a good idea, but in the interests of not starting Stonewall ten years too early, they leave shortly after that. 

They get two years together. It’s an experience – they’d been children, really, the last time they had seriously dated, and at no point had they had to do the adult experience: buying groceries, fighting over bills, arranging the house the way they liked. It was good and it was bad and it was everything Sara had dreamed of (except for the unexpected presence of Ray – even though he was a wonderful housemate, no lie, Sara kept having visions of that scene in Road to El Dorado with the horse being a surprise).

That being said, all three of them are deeply relieved when the Waverider shows back up. Sara had been contemplating making a ruckus large enough for the Time Masters to notice and asking them for a lift (she’d remembered about the day the music died too late to do anything, but she was seriously contemplating going to France to stop Camus’ car accident just for the irony points); Kendra was starting to have trouble summoning her wings, and that was just unacceptable. 

They rescue Snart from Kronos and then Kronos from himself – well, Snart does it, really.

Sara does go and yell at Rory about not solving his marital problems by letting his husband throw himself repeatedly on his fist in the future. Rory had listened, bemused, and finally said, “You are way too invested in my marriage.”

Sara had sniffed, tossed her hair and said, “Just be happy you still remember _having one_. And let me tell you this, Rory, if you don’t appreciate having him, Kendra and I will be happy to take him off your hands.” 

This is a lie, but it gets a flare of panic in Rory’s eyes.

(Then she drinks Rory under the table in the 1870s and they’re friends again after that.)

Kendra meets her past self, who says some ominous things about the endless cycle with Carter, fate breaking their hearts, etc.

“How much do you remember? I reckon not a lot because you didn't recognize me, so let me tell you that we did love other men. Loved them real and pure, but it never ended well, not ever. Tragedy or heartbreak...” the past Kendra pauses significantly. “That's how it always ends if the man's not Carter.”

Sara listens carefully, then clears her throat. “Just to be clear – that’s how it ends if the man’s not Carter?”

“That’s what I said,” the older woman said, frowning.

Kendra looks between them and starts giggling uncontrollably. “I’m sorry!” she exclaims. “I know it’s not funny – I just – we loved other _men_ …”

Sara smiles, satisfied. 

Turns out past Kendra doesn’t think too highly of lesbians – there’s a lot more references to God and damnation than one would expect from someone who’s a reincarnated Egyptian priestess – but whatever, different eras, different morals. 

Kendra’s not as weighed down by her past self’s revelation as she might’ve been without that little interlude, so Sara’s counting it as a win. 

Rory and her spend the next mission desperately trying to keep their younger selves from dating. Sara had _such bad taste_ at that age. Eventually, she introduces her younger self to Kendra’s adult self, albeit from a distance.

Works like a charm.

Everyone else seems to find this deeply hilarious. Mostly Snart and Kendra. Rory and Sara spend a lot of time exchanging helpless “how is this my significant other” looks. 

Then they go to the future and Carter is there.

Kendra can’t kill him, of course she can’t, and now they can’t kill Savage, either. Sara goes to sulk with Snart and Rory, who greet her with alcohol and sympathy and advice.

“Don’t judge her too quick,” Snart tells her. “She’s still in that happy reunion stage where everything’s peachy. Wait till she’s calmed down a bit, then she’ll be able to make a proper decision. You ask now, she’ll pick him and regret it later.”

Rory’s nodding along. “Feelings are stupid,” he says. “As soon as he’s back to himself and not helpless, she’ll start remembering all the stupid shit that pissed her off the first time around.”

“What if she _does_ pick him, though?” Sara asks. “What do I do then? I can’t fight destiny.”

They consider this. “You can come back to Central with us,” Snart offers. “We could always use another Rogue.”

“You can hit on Snart’s sister,” Rory suggests. 

Snart twists to glare at him.

“What? She’s hot.”

Snart grabs a pillow and swats him in the head.

“You need to _stop doing that_ ,” Rory growls.

Sara finds herself laughing, which is not how she expected to spend this evening. 

After Savage gets loose (no one is surprised, except maybe Rip) and Snart and Rory’s perfectly reasonable plan to ditch is derailed, they meet back up. Now all three of them are scowling.

They split another bottle and dissect all the things Rip’s done wrong as their Captain, and they get about 75% of a pretty decent mutiny plan hammered down before Rory goes off to find more liquor and Snart and Sara retreat to her room to dig up the set of card they’ve been using.

“There’s a lot more three player games to pick from – it’ll kill all the time we want –” she’s saying when he holds up his hand to silence her.

“Mick’s been gone too long,” he says. “We need to hide. Now.”

They rescue the others, all but Kendra and Carter, and destroy the Oculus.

They lose Snart.

There’s something hollow in Rory’s eyes after that, some essential piece missing. Sara dries her tears and vows to herself that she doesn’t give a damn about destiny.

She’s going to fight for Kendra.

If Kendra doesn’t want her – well. That’s something else, and Sara won’t stand in her way if that’s what she wants. But Sara’s not going to lie down and let destiny tread all over her. 

They kill Savage and rescue Kendra and Carter.

Sara goes and kisses her lover, who sinks into her arms. “I missed you,” she says, smiling with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Kendra.”

“I missed you so much,” Kendra says, and kisses her back. 

Carter looks like he’s been punched in the face.

Kendra turns to him, wry smile on her face. “Remember what you told me when we started this mission?” she asks. “Right before you died? You said that you’d been taking us for granted, expecting me to fall in love with you because that's what I’ve done the last 206 lifetimes. That that doesn’t make us destiny, just probability.”

He nods.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But this lifetime? This lifetime’s Sara’s.”

“I’ll wait for you,” he says. “I’ll love you as many lifetimes as it takes.”

“Don’t wait for me,” Kendra says. “With Savage dead, there’s no reason to think that we’ll keep reincarnating.”

It doesn’t look like Carter had thought about that. “Are you sure?” he asks. “We could find out what our life is like without Savage hanging over our heads. We’ve had 206 lifetimes –”

“I’m sure,” Kendra says firmly.

They go back to 2016 hand in hand. Sara takes Kendra home, explaining about Snart. About Laurel.

Kendra grabs her hands. “Sara,” she says. “Why in the world are you still listening to Rip? So he says it’s impossible. I’m a reincarnated Egyptian priestess with wings that just dumped my boyfriend for the first time in 4000 years. You’re a reincarnated assassin ninja. We already _are_ impossible. The Oculus is gone; Rip has no idea what will affect the timeline or not. So screw him. Let’s go save them, both of them.”

Sara kisses her and takes her to meet the family again before they go to fix the timeline – fix the timeline the way that it _should_ be. 

“Hey, Kendra,” her father says. “I’d never noticed it before, but you look a lot like Sara’s old babysitter…”


End file.
